Tag Archives: social media

The 100 most influential news media Twitter accounts

Daniel Romero, a PhD candidate at Cornell University in the US, has produced some fascinating research into news organisations and sources’ influence on Twitter.

Using a study by HP Labs’ Social Computing Lab, which attempts to measure influence on Twitter, Romero has created a list of the 100 most influential news media accounts.


The BBC’s breaking news account, the Wall Street Journal, ESPN and the New York Times all rank within the top 25 most influential. But as our visualisation below of the top 25 accounts in the list shows (click to interact with it), a large number of followers doesn’t always guarantee you more influence – the quality of links and how they are shared also count.

(via Memeburn)

Twitter transgression almost claims another job in journalism

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There is no shortage in opinion that journalists using social media such as Twitter are armed with an invaluable tool for staying connected to their patch and enabling communication with an extensive community of sources and readers.

But recent cases of journalists being reprimanded or even sacked for comments made on the instant messaging site repeatedly remind us of the importance of using the mouthpiece with careful consideration. The need for caution was well illustrated by a Washington Post sports columnist this week who sent out a false news tweet from his personal account, which identifies him as a reporter, landing him in hot water with his employer.

Mike Wise was suspended by the Post after sending out a tweet suggesting that a Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback was being suspended for five games, despite Wise being well aware the figure was inaccurate. He claims it was a ‘test’ of how fast incorrect news can spread over the internet.

But while his test succeeded in showing how quickly that piece of misinformation spread through the web, it also left him with a month-long suspension to reflect on what he admitted was a “horrendous mistake”.

According to a blog post by the newspaper’s ombudsman Andrew Alexander, the fabrication of news is “a major journalistic transgression” and an action for which Wise is “lucky” to not have been sacked for.

MediaShift: Teaching social media should go beyond the basics of Twitter

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Great post of ideas from Alfred Hermida, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, on how journalism schools should approach the teaching of social media, from newsgathering and verifying social media channels to managing an online presence as a professional.

Teaching social media is more than showing students the mechanics of Twitter. Rather, they should learn how to build a network of relevant followers and how to interact with them to be a better journalist.

In the classroom, we need to stress that social media technologies do not just offer journalists new ways of doing old things. They offer the potential to explore new ways of telling stories, of collaborating and connecting with audiences, of rethinking how we do journalism.

Full post on MediaShift at this link…

Journalist invites others to join in with ‘liquid newsroom’ idea

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German journalist Steffen Konrath has called on fellow journalists to help him revolutionise the way journalists interact with news over the internet.

Konrath, a web applications director from Munich, is busy building what he calls a ‘liquid newsroom’, for which he aims to gather journalists from all over the world to simultaneously tackle items in the news.

Konrath said: “A Liquid Newsroom would challenge the restrictions of space and organizational form. Instead of a given organisational type, the news site will come into existence from the time someone decides to open a topic.”

I would like to start an experiment with my readers & Twitter followers to start an open innovation project on a global level to develop such a concept using social media tools and simply our connectedness.

Full post at this link



New US hyperlocal Twitter network using zip codes to aggregate news

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A new Twitter network could be about to change the face of local news gathering.

Twitzip is designed to share ‘hyperlocal’ news based on users’ zip codes. American creators Nathan Heinrich and Aaron Donsbach created accounts for nearly all of the zip codes in the US back in 2008 with the idea of building a network that would harness the knowledge of local residents and allow them to share news by tweeting from an account for their area.

As we analyzed Twitter’s potential, we realized the one location-based handle that everyone knows is their zip or postal code. We thought it would be a waste if Twitter zip code handles or ‘TwitZips’ were owned by tens of thousands of different people with tens of thousands of different uses. Furthermore, we thought TwitZips might be valuable for networking local citizens together. This was the start of TwitZip.

According to a statement on the network’s website, the service is currently focused on hyperlocal news, blogs, and crime, but will soon integrate weather and government alerts.

If successful, TwitZip could prove a happy hunting ground for local journalists tracking breaking news.

For more details, visit www.twitzip.com and www.hyperlocalblogger.com

BBC shares results of social media and accountability research

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An interesting update via the BBC Internet Blog on Friday regarding the broadcaster’s approach to social media. Social media executive, BBC Online, Nick Reynolds shares the executive summary of research conducted by Unthinkable Consulting into accountability and social media use.

The findings of the research were given to the BBC in April and as such some of the recommendations made are already being worked on. But it makes for interesting reading – both in terms of what the BBC should be doing with social media, in particular blogs and user comments, and what other news organisations can learn.

Key recommendations include:

  • “We recommend that blog authors respond at least in part to popular comment threads where new points or questions are being raised. We also recommend greater empathy and consistency from hosts.”
  • “There needs to be a culture change inside the BBC such that it becomes an accepted and expected part of the job of senior editorial management to read online social media output associated with their linear brands, as well as being aware of the competition.”
  • “We recommend that the BBC should consider to what extent  conversations which are now conducted on bbc.co.uk could be conducted externally instead. Regardless of the outcome, the BBC also needs to  spend more time reading and engaging with online commentary around itself and its brands.”

Read Nick Reynolds’ full post at this link…

View the executive summary:

Google buys social payment provider Jambool

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Google has bought start-up Jambool and with it Jambool’s online social payment service ‘Social Gold’, which allows developers to build payments directly into games and apps.

According to recent reports across media sites, including paidContent, the Shaping the Future of the Newspaper blog and TechCrunch, the platform, which enables companies to manage their own virtual currencies, will form part of “the backbone” of Google’s plans to harness the power of social media.

See Jambool’s statement on the purchase here…

Lara Setrakian’s ‘accordion bureau’ of media tools

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Media Gaggle has an interesting profile of ABC’s Middle East correspondent Lara Setrakian, who describes how social media and mobile tools make up her “accordion bureau”.

Setrakian’s description of using different media and channels to share news and reports is great:

I don’t have to sit around and wait for a story to rise to the occasion of one of our shows, to the bar of one of our shows, something still significant but less visual, or something still significant but shorter. We’ll put it on the radio or tweet it. These things are important. I’m at Fadlallah’s funeral, I’m somewhere, I’m in Hezbollah’s neighborhood, I’m in Iran, I can tweet these effects. It has created a spectrum of ways to do this job.

And she’s @laraABCNews on Twitter.

Full post on Media Gaggle at this link…

Social media fellowship offers week-long course for journalists

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A great opportunity for journalists in the US (we’re told in the comments below it’s open to international journalists too): the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism, part of the Ohio State University, is looking for journalists for its social media fellowship.

The fellowship consists of a week-long course in March 2011 for journalists who want training in using social media for news gathering and publishing, including tuition on SEO, the semantic web, social networks and building an online presence.

The foundation will cover the costs of the course and travel and board.

The deadline for applications is 30 November.

(via SPJ’s Net Worked blog)

Twingly: Testing social media’s love of traditional news

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Using its channels feature, blog search engine Twingly has done a rough analysis of which traditional news organisations in 10 European countries are “best loved” by social media.

The site looked at the “top stories” of the day for each of the news sites and calculated the references and links shared to them on social sites, including blogs and Twitter.

Comparing all these, there are quite some striking scenarios to look at. The strongest Channels in terms of linking blogs and tweets are without a doubt UK and Sweden. Taking a closer look at both, one notices that all top stories on the Swedish Channel usually have far more blog posts referring to them than tweets! In Norway it looks largely the same – almost all top stories get discussed more on blogs than on Twitter.

Full post on Twingly at this link…